


You Know Me

by nxttime



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Don't Judge Me, I promise I love Tim, I was in an angst mood okay, Like, Lots of Angst, it just, it's a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 20:05:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nxttime/pseuds/nxttime
Summary: "How did you gain access into the Mountain." Such a familiar sentence, phrased in such a familiar manner, but such an unfamiliar side to be on. Sitting in a chair. Tied to it. Blood dripping from a cut in is head. Batman looming over him, expression hard and cruel. Nightwing leaning against a wall behind the Bat, facial expression unreadable; cold.Or, some heavy Tim Drake angst.





	1. Give Never Take

Everything can change in an instant. That is something Tim thought he already knew.

He’s just understanding the magnitude that sentence holds, and he hates himself for it.

“How did you gain access into the Mountain.”

Such a familiar sentence, phrased in such a familiar manner, but such an unfamiliar side to be on. Sitting in a chair. Tied to it. Blood dripping from a cut in is head. Batman looming over him, expression hard and cruel. Nightwing leaning against a wall behind the Bat, facial expression unreadable; cold. His teammates standing scattered around the room, glaring; confused; bored.

Tim offers no reaction but an apathetic expression and replies in a deadpan tone. “I am a part of this team.” M’gann seems concentrated as she stares at him with a furrowed brow and thin lips, but he pays her no mind. There’s no way she’ll be able to get into his head but, if she probes enough, Tim might just give her a glimpse at what it’s like in there right now. How agonized and confused; how desperate and yearning he is. He’ll give her a glimpse of the pain and suffering he’s felt.

He’ll teach her to stay out of his head.

Internally, Tim is distraught. He has no idea why they don’t remember him; has no clue why thirty minutes after he wakes up he’s fighting his entire team, then just five minutes after he’s incapacitated them he’s attacked by his _brother_ and _mentor,_ ruthlessly.

But trying to solve things with emotions running high would do nothing for him. Tim needs to look at things objectively. Factually. He can’t let his emotions make the decisions.

_What went wrong?_

One of his first mistakes was temporarily forgetting about Batman’s existence; the second being his unknown doubt that Bruce would strike him while he was immobile. Tim only realizes this when he’s uppercutted so hard he feels his jaw crack and his head snaps back against the chair.

Nightwing makes an odd noise and frowns. “Batman that was unnecessary, don’t you think?”

The word growled in response doesn’t surprise Tim in the least.

“No.”

He coughs, turning his head to spit crimson blood onto the concrete ground, before tilting his head back and looking up at the imposing figure that is his _father_ who stands above him. Jaw in agony so excruciating that just the thought of talking makes him want to groan in pain, Tim shoulders through it and grits out, “I am _not_ lying. You trained me; I’m _Robin_.”

Suddenly Dick dove between Bruce and Tim, shoving the older man back as his face twisted into a snarl. “I did no such thing,” Bruce growls low in a dangerous tone.

Tim’s face became empty again as Kaldur stepped forward.

“My friend, we do not wish to hurt you. Tell Batman how it is you were able to enter, and it will make things much more painless.” Tim would expect no less from the leader of the Team. Trying to resolve things peacefully is always something the Aqualad tried to do.

But that wouldn’t get him anywhere. Not when Tim is already telling the truth.

He makes a face, forcing himself to swallow the wad of blood that’d collected in his mouth, before speaking. “I’m telling the truth.”

_How to prove it?_

Tim looks at his brother, who now stands tense above him.

What he needs to do...

“A _Dick_. Nightwing. Started as a vigilante at nine years old. Parents are dead. No living relatives.”

Above him Dick’s body language readis relaxed, but Tim can read his brother and mentor like open books.

They’re beyond alarmed.

He looks back to Bruce, now, as he says, “Believe me yet?”

A muscle in Bruce’s jaw twitches and Tim knows that means he’s pressed every one of his buttons, and the Bat is far past any rational decision.

Something inside Tim dies the moment Dick strikes him across the face and he falls unconscious.

They don’t remember him. None of them do.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up in a cell, jaw bandaged and cheek throbbing. Come to think of it, his head is killing him too.

Tim moans in pain and tries curling up tight, only for his arms to meet resistance with the clinking of chains. Brow furrowing he cracks his eyes open and squints through the unforgiving fluorescents.

What he sees makes his blood run cold and his heart harden solid.

He’s in a bland room, domino removed, wrists cuffed to a wall, inhibitor collar around his neck, and dressed in a teal prison jumpsuit.

Slowly Tim’s face goes from mortified to expressionless.

They hadn’t remembered.

He gazes out the one wall he can see through--the other three are probably one-sided mirrors, he can see himself in the two on his peripherals--and catches sight of Batman standing, facing an empty Robin suit.

Jason Todd’s.

Tim ignores him, shoving all his feelings aside again as he tries to understand why nobody seems to remember him.

_What had we been doing yesterday? Or would that be two days ago?_ Tim snorts. _Who knows how long it’s been._

He closes his eyes as he remembers, letting his head fall back onto the ground as he does so.

A few seconds later Tim jolts upright, chains on his forearms going taught when he pulls them their length.

_Klarion. He did this._

The Witch Boy. The Team had gone to El Paso, Texas, to do some recon work for Batman when they’d been discovered and attacked. Klarion had been there. Tim had managed to injure Teekl and Klarion had sworn revenge.

* * *

 

_“You WILL pay for this, Robin! Dearly!”_

_Tim ignored Klarion as the Witch Boy vanished, turning to high-five Bart._

_“That was so crash! Hey, guys, think we can pick up some Chicken Whizzies on the way back? I ran out.”_

_Jaime made a strangled noise. “Dude! You ate all my chips?!”_

_Bart chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck, and looked at his wrist, that definitely didn’t have a watch on it._

_“Oh will you look at the time, gotta get back home; well see ya!”_

_Tim laughed at Jaime, putting a hand on his shoulder as they walked to the bioship. “Don’t worry, man. I’ve got a stash of my own.” When Jaime turned to him, surprise all over his face, Tim laughed again. “What? I like them too.”_

* * *

 

The memory leaves a dead pit in Tim’s chest.

Klarion really did it. He got his payback.

As Tim truly accepts the fact, his eyes dim and he slouches against the mirror to his back. He watches Bruce interact with Dick, a deep throb deep in his chest.

They’ll never remember him.

Dully, Tim wonders if it was hard to remove any memory of him. Probably not. He’s easily forgettable.

He never really had a place with any of them, anyways.

Now?

Now it’s just the way it’s meant to be.

The way it had always meant to be.

 


	2. Don't Show Never Tell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim sat alone, hands cuffed to a chain around his waist that also connected to cuffs on his ankles. His eyes dim and ignoring the world. His long, stringy hair covered his face, only a few strands held together by the rubber band holding the rest of it. Scars earned from numerous scuffles in this place crosshatched his arms and body underneath the layers he wore. A few marred his face and he absently reached to scratch at one. Around him other inmates chattered among themselves, all divided into different groups, eyes flicking around nervously like sitting with the prison gang could keep them safe from the armed guards scattered around the lunch area.
> 
> Or, Tim's had enough. He makes his choice.

Tim sat alone, hands cuffed to a chain around his waist that also connected to cuffs on his ankles. His eyes dim and ignoring the world. His long, stringy hair covered his face, only a few strands held together by the rubber band holding the rest of it. Scars earned from numerous scuffles in this place crosshatched his arms and body underneath the layers he wore. A few marred his face and he absently reached to scratch at one. Around him other inmates chattered among themselves, all divided into different groups, eyes flicking around nervously like sitting with the prison gang could keep them safe from the armed guards scattered around the lunch area.

He’d been in Blackgate Penitentiary since the day he woke up in the Batcave. Tim remembered it all—Bruce’s identity, Dick’s, the team’s—but pretended he didn’t after being interrogated by the Justice League. It wasn’t hard to lie to them. Tim _had_ been trained by the Batman, after all.

From what Tim had counted, he’d been here for fifteen years.

 _I’m 29,_ he mused to himself. How old was Bruce? Dick? Alfred? His old team?

Not like it mattered, he supposed; they didn’t remember him and didn’t need to. Tim had long gotten over the sting, it had dulled to a throbbing ache in his chest years ago.

Raised voices coaxed Tim out of his musings, though he would hardly be surprised if it was another yelling match between the _Caveiras_ and the _Drakos_. They got into shouting arguments just about every other day.

As he lifted his head to look over, the four guards standing around him tensed, fingers twitching over the triggers to their weapons, but Tim ignored them. It looked like things were escalating between the rival prison gangs today because a few members of each had risen from their seats.

The muzzle of a gun nudged Tim’s shoulder as a guard instructed him to stand.

Tim complied after about twenty seconds, a small grunt escaping him, and rose to his newly-measured height of 5’11”. He’d hit his growth spurt sometime in prison.

Ever since his third spat in the lunchroom he’d been kept separate from the others, though it hadn’t been Tim’s fault the guy wanted to make him his bitch. Tim had needed to make a point, and it had to be made _well_ known. The offender had suffered a shattered collarbone, a broken orbital socket, a dislocated wrist, and a broken hip, but he’d survived. Tim hadn’t killed anyone.

He stretched as much as his bonds would allow, every gun of his personal escort pointed at him in a heartbeat, a few joints popping.

If Tim were to be completely honest, he had no plans to return to his solitary cell today. He knew why the gang was arguing, and had known each and every time they’d fought. He had the reason hidden on his person, after all, strapped to his calf. A stupid little trinket the _Caveiras_ valued as a sort of talisman; an item of similar value to the _Drakos_ resting beside the other stolen charm. Each fight between the two gangs had been planned to the letter, Tim using the gangs without them knowing of his hand in it, like a ghost puppeteer pulling their marionette strings.

Now that he thought about it, he’d gotten a nickname in this cage. _Wraith._ Nobody knew his name, where he came from or why he’d been incarcerated and everyone was too afraid to ask. They’d sensed his cold, intelligent aura the moment they’d laid eyes on him, even as a fourteen-year-old. His quarters had always been in solitary, probably per Batman’s recommendation.

Wraith is all anyone here knew him by. It was all they would ever know him by. It was a name he planned to live up to down to the letter today, if he hadn’t been before.

Death is inevitable, after all, and Tim had a name to support.

As he started walking to the door that would lead him back to his cold, white-walled, silent cell, Tim waited for them to start passing the uproarious fight before abruptly halting in his walk. Quickly, efficiently, slipping his hand out of the cuffs. Throwing an elbow into a guard’s unprotected gut and twisting the gun out of his hands.

Turning off the weapon’s safety, he only had a few seconds to think if he truly wanted to live up to the nickname, time slowing as they ticked away.

_10 seconds_

Tim had been Robin.

_9 seconds_

Robins don’t kill.

_8 seconds_

Batman didn’t stand for killing.

_7 seconds_

Becoming Robin, Tim had understood that.

_6 seconds_

He’d agreed wholeheartedly.

_5 seconds_

Tim had upheld his morals throughout his years.

_4 seconds_

But they weren’t his morals, were they?

_3 seconds_

They’d been Batman’s morals.

_2 seconds_

They’d been Robin’s morals.

_1 second_

He wasn’t Robin anymore.

_0 seconds_

Tim pulled the trigger, gun aimed at the guard’s head, and milliseconds later his head snapped to the side, the bullet slipping in through one end of the skull then out another, like a fish swimming gently through calm waters.

Instantly after pulling the trigger, Tim was ducking to avoid the bullets fired from the guns of stunned and shocked guards around him. Since he hadn’t been able to free his legs, Tim was forced to slide-tackle one of the other guards, twisting his torso to fire one more bullet and again hitting his mark under the chin, blood immediately rushing free.

Two guards of Tim’s escort left, and he wasn’t paying any more attention to the gang dispute. The other guards were occupied trying to stop the two gangs who, last Tim knew, were now hostile and engaged in a large-scale fight. They couldn’t come to their comrade’s aid even if they wanted to.

Above him, the guard he’d slide-tackled fell, flailing with a yelp, and Tim rolled out of the way. The guard left standing fired off three bullets, two of which missed, and the only one that hit pierced the flesh of Tim’s upper right arm. He grit his teeth at the pain, bringing the butt of the gun he held down _hard_ on the fallen guard’s throat, probably crushing the windpipe, and rolled to his feet. A bullet grazed his neck. Tim hissed, jerked the gun up and fired two bullets, each boring their own ways through the remaining guard’s head. Wet gurgling reached Tim’s ears and he glanced down. The poor bastard was still alive.

With that thought, Tim turned and snuck away, making sure to shoot the security cameras he’d noted beforehand. There was no catwalk around the room for snipers to fire down from, and that meant no eyes to watch where he went.

Leaving screams and gunfire behind him, Tim slipped away like a fish leaping smoothly into a new body of water, leaving not a trace of where it went, only ripples left in its wake.

He was long gone by the time they got the situation was under control.

* * *

 

Bruce slammed his hand on the console of the Batcomputer, his other hand carding through his hair in frustration. Their John Doe escaped Blackgate three days ago and still nothing.

_Nothing._

There was a likely criminal on the streets with information in his head _far_ too valuable to be left untraced. It was both infuriating and stressful, yet, Bruce couldn’t help but respect this young man. He was managing to stay off of _Batman’s_ radar.

He glanced over to a monitor displaying current news and watched as the feed changed. The audio was off, like always, but for this next story all Bruce needed to do was see.

Eyes widening, Bruce analyzed the information, moving the feed to the center monitor and leaning back in his chair.

The audio remained off as a video that appeared to be 720p or a few pixels above began playing. On it Bruce watched as a boy twenty-nine years of age dispatched four trained and armed guards, escaped his bonds, and took out the feed.

Burning baby blue eyes was the last image he saw.

Abruptly the reel changed, the reporter on-screen looking either alarmed or surprised as a new photo popped up beside her. The red bar below that rattled off the information she was saying read: **JOHN DOE, AGE: 29, PREVIOUSLY WANTED: FOUND DEAD BENEATH WESTBURY BRIDGE** **.**

Leaning forward in his seat, Bruce narrowed his eyes. The photo was grainy but showed a male with raven-colored hair wearing a red prison jumpsuit floating in the water, face-down and skin pale. Drowned.

A fog Bruce hadn’t known about lifted from his head and he gasped, memories flooding back like water from a broken dam. Memories of the neighbor kid who had become a son. Memories of a third Robin _after_. Memories of a boy who needed to get more sleep and do less work.

_That’s no John doe._

How could he have done this? How could he have forgotten? Bruce _sent his son_ to **_Blackgate_ **.

And now Tim was dead because of it.

“What have I done?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Open endings, I find, are very much fun. I hope you guys enjoyed it! Find me over on Tumblr @nxttime if you want to scream at me, or just chat!
> 
> Lots of love, y'all!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you don't mind the angst ^^''


End file.
